When she left
by Lifesizedecoy
Summary: Set after Iron man 3 Tony and Pepper face their biggest challenge...each other. They have a family and something just didn't go the way they thought. This is pretty emotional from a family point of view...be warned


Tony Stark...a self proclaimed playboy billionaire. He was one of the safest men on the planet, but of course his alter ego iron man brought all the trouble. This is the story of how his life came crashing down around him and he lost the one thing he couldn't live it without.

it was a day like any other, I hadn't slept as always but that didn't bother me anymore, I finally had someone worth living for...my Pepper Potts. After everything we had been through we had decided to settle down and actually build a life for ourselves, meaning I had to give up being iron man and actually take some interest in Stark Industries, which meant work...boring. I only bothered because of Pepper otherwise I probably would have wasted away by now, she was the only thing keeping me going at the moment. I never took any interest in what my company was doing, only when Justin Hammer got involved was I worried.

There are many things in my life that regret doing but more that I regret not doing and I'd made a pretty long list of enemies over the years. Stain was my first enemy, he tried to kill me and Pepper to take over my company, Pepper saved my ass on that one when she blew up the giant reactor, frying Stain's insides. That was when I first invented the iron man suit during my time in captivity in the Afgan, I'd rather not relive those moments. I just remember Pepper's face when I staggered off the plane, I'd never really witnessed my PA crying and I never wanted to, but I'm glad that she was pleased to see me.

A few days later Justin Hammer tried to beat me in the arms race, hiring my father's co-workers son which was a bad mistake. Ivan hated my very existence and turned all of Hammer's bot's into death machines which he controlled from an outside location. Pepper again was the one that saved my ass, along with Rhodey and Agent Romanov, I still get told the stories of how Natasha beat up 11 guys while my bodyguard Happy took down 1. He won't ever live that one down.

In fact now that I actually think about it...Pepper saved my ass pretty much every time, the time where I was on the race track and Ivan attacked me Pepper had my armour case, that was a nightmare, I seriously thought Pepper would get hurt. Then came Nick Fury and the Avengers...they brought a whole lot of aggravation and the start of my nightmares. Our team consisted of Captain America, Me, Agent Barton a.k.a Hawkeye, Agent Romanov a.k.a Black Widow, Bruce Banner and the Norse God Thor. Yeah we made a pretty sweet team but without Agent Coulson we wouldn't have been able to defeat Loki and his army of flying lizards, Coulson was the hero out of us all...he died at the hands of our enemy and pushed us over the edge and brought us together.

A nuke was fire at Stark Towers and I saved everyone...grabbing hold of the nuke and flew into the portal created by the tesseract...don't get me wrong I was willing to die for the safety of everyone else but I tried to call Pepper before I died. She didn't answer. That's when the problems started, the one thing I couldn't live without was Pepper and as I passed out I never thought I'd get to see her again. It was horrible...I'd lost her...or that's what I thought anyway. Hulk grabbed me out of the sky and we got our man Loki, Thor took him back to Asgard to face Odin's judgement.

That was it for a few months...the occasional bad guy cropped up and they were dealt with, me and the avengers worked together for a while but I drifted...they weren't my style, I always did prefer to do things on my own terms...and I wanted to ask the girl I love out. Yeah after all of this Pepper and I hooked up and we'd set up home in my Malibu house, everything was going great, we were running the company together like we should have done years ago. It all changed when the last bad guy came on the scene...The Mandarin...or so I thought at the time.

The Mandarin was just the hired face of evil, the real bad guy behind it all was Killian...a weirdo scientist that came to me for funding in 1999, but since then his private think tank had boomed and developed a biological weapon known as Extremis. Back in 1999 my one night fling was Maya Hansen who just so happened to team up with Killian and get herself killed, by the time this all happened I'd developed over 40 different suits that I kept in my basement, the latest was mark 42 which I'd developed to be called to me. Everything went bad and Killian snatched up Pepper and turned her into a walking science experiment gone wrong, she'd been injected with Extremis and was unstable.

We got through it and I got rid of pretty much all my suits and fixed Pepper up. Anyway, the years passed and we were blessed with children, two beautiful children Sebastian and Ginny. Everything was going great, we both managed the kids and work easily and spent some really lovely time together with the kids, I was determined not to let the kids end up like me and my dad...we never got on and he died without me getting to apologise him. Sebastian is now 16 and Ginny is 9, they are both genius kids at the top schools in the state, Sebastian going to University 3 years early then the rest of his age group.

It all started when I'd gone out one night alone to have a drink with the guys from work, Rhodey included. I don't really know what happened but I remember some shadowy figure coming up to me...here's what happened after...I'd been possessed...sounds stupid but with the entire criminal world out to get you anything could happen.

I staggered back home and called some of my mark 42 to me, eyes glowing a bright blue and slammed though the door of our house. Pepper was sat on the couch and the kids were in bed, I gave her one twisted look, whatever was in my body was angry and I couldn't call out for help. Charging forward I attacked Pepper, swinging for her as she died out of the way. I could hear her scream my name and tell me to stop but I couldn't, somehow I still cried as I tore towards her, my repulser charging up...no...I can't kill her...I cant...

pepper called her own armour which I thankfully kept on call in case of emergency, she grabbed my chest and pinned me to the floor crying, I'm sorry Pepper...I took my hand and punched her square in the jaw, making a crunching noise as the metal connected. Although the armour was a protective outer layer it still packed a punch when fighting. "Tony..." she whimpered as she was splayed out on the floor in front of me, I wanted to hold her and tell her what was going on but I couldn't. "Tony...stop it...I don't want to hurt you..." I knew what she meant and I was fully prepared for what was going to happen...we'd dealt with possession when Loki got a hold of Barton. I charged unwillingly towards her again and her fist connected with my unarmoured temple and I crumpled to the floor. Unconscious but alive.

Pepper ditched her armour and ran to the kids, pulling them out of bed, they were going. She grabbed the keys to the car their passports and whatever money was laying around the house and left. She phones SHIELD and got their location, identities changed before the morning. I didn't know where they had gone or even that they had gone I just awoke with a massive bruise on my head and no one in the house. I got up and there was a note on the table...it read...

"Tony...I'm sorry but this cannot go on...I've taken the kids...I can't see you again...I'm sorry"

I punched the wall and slumped to the floor, so angry with myself for letting this happen to my family, I'd finally lost the one thing I couldn't live without and the precious little gems that I called my kids. I frantically got in the car and went driving...I needed to find her to say I'm sorry and explain what had happened, for days and nights I searched. I sent out advertisements asking for their whereabouts and TV broadcasts asking her to come home. That turned out to be a dead end, nothing came of it...

I started to lose it, I stopped drinking and I destroyed my lab in hope this was what had caused the problems...I'd even thought about destroying JARVIS but then realised it was the only thing I'd have left of who I was. Even the bots were gone...I wanted to see none of it, none of what reminded me of her, it was too painful. Pepper was the one thing I loved more than anything in the whole world and I'd put her in danger more times then I could count. I wanted her back...back in my arms.

Months past and there was nothing from Pepper...not even a phone call to say sorry, or a letter or email...nothing but the company was still running so she must still be around somewhere. I'd lost hope but never stopped looking for her, everyday seemed to drag on for eternity until one day 3 years later. My phone rang and it wasn't a number I recognised, I picked it up and held it to my ear.

"Hello?...Pepper is that you? hello?" for the first few seconds there was silence but I could hear movement, there was someone there and if they were playing a trick it wasn't funny, I was close to putting the phone down when a voice sounded...and my world came crashing down around me once more.


End file.
